JOCK Gallagher, former head of BBC Radio, tells how he brought long-running soap, The Archers, into the modern world.

IT is seen as quintessentially English, the everyday story of a green and pleasant land.

But we can reveal that the man who holds the secrets to long-running radio soap The Archers is a Scot who grew up on a council estate in Greenock.

Jock Gallagher was in charge of BBC radio when he realised nobody had ever written a proper history of the fictional village Ambridge, complete with maps and biographies of all the characters.

Despite his lofty post, Jock decided that if he wanted it done properly, he better do it himself.

Jock, 75, said: “I often chuckle to myself about the irony of it all.

“There is nothing in the world more English than The Archers – except it’s not quite as English as everyone would like to think.

“When I took over as radio boss at Pebble Mill in 1971, The Archers was the jewel in the BBC’s crown. But, to my eternal shame, I’d never listened to a single episode.

“I arrived at a time when it was actually losing listeners and its future really was hanging in the balance.

“I recognised immediately that we had to move with the times. We needed to liven things up or we’d die.

Jock Gallagher

“One of the first things I did was to steal Malcolm Lynch from Coronation Street, where he’d been editor.”

Lynch dragged the radio soap into the modern world with a plane crash, a train crash and attempted rape all in one week, topping it all off with the church bells falling down.

Jock said: “There were a lot of raised eyebrows but people realised we had to move with the times.

“But we also had to hold on to listeners who’d been tuning in to the cosiness of life in Ambridge since 1951.”

Jock was head of network radio when he embarked on the mammoth task of chronicling The Archers’ back story in his spare time.

This turned into a major headache when the show’s creator, Godfrey Baseley, stormed off in fury over the changes.

Jock said: “Nobody had really kept track of the history of each character and over the years, they had all changed so much.

“When the series started, Peggy Archer was a lowly landgirl but by the time I came along, she was lady of the manor.

“We needed to create a back story for each character and we couldn’t get it wrong.

“There were listeners who had tuned in from the beginning and they would spot any mistake.

“As there was no one available to do the job, I took it on myself.

Felicity Finch and Timothy Bentinck as Ruth and David Archer

“I created a history that went back in time between the wars and beyond and I also mapped the geography of the place, surrounding villages and landmarks.”

Ambridge is set in the fictional county of Borsetshire, between Worcestershire and Warwickshire in the Midlands.

Jock, whose new book Scotland’s Global Empire has just been published, said: “As I learned more about the series, I discovered other Scots who’d made their mark too.

“One of the earliest and most influential writers was John Keir Cross from Carluke.

“As a young man, he’d set out to find fame and fortune, leaving home on his bike with two ventriloquist dummies.

“He got as far as Paisley where he found himself arrested on suspicion of murder.

“In grand soap opera style, he beat the rap and continued his journey into radio history.

“He joined The Archers in 1962 and introduced many quirky tales and unforgettable characters.”

Cross, who died in 1969, inherited two Scots characters – Ambridge GP Dr MacLaren and Angus, the Archer family’s stockman. He later created a third in the shape of Andrew Sinclair, the Ambridge estate manager.

Jock said: “The Scottish influence continued when Glasgow’s Julia Marks played barmaid Nora McAuley. Crawford Logan, from Stirling, first played Alan Fraser, the SAS boyfriend of Caroline Bone, in 1982 then returned in 1986 as GP Dr Matthew Thorogood.

“Michael Deacon, from Glasgow, played vicar Jerry Buckle and since 2000, Glasgow-born Ryan Kelly has played ladies’ man Jazzer McCreary.”

Jock added: “When I was at the BBC, most of the others of my ilk were public school and university educated.

“I came from the working class Bow Farm council estate in Greenock but I had a steely determination to succeed.

“My birth name is James but with my Scottish accent, everyone at the BBC called me Jock in their posh accents.

“Instead of taking offence, I reasoned that if they thought of me as Jock the Lad, it ensured everyone remembered my name as I rose steadily through the ranks.

“To their English ears, all Scots sound the same, so they couldn’t tell I was working class.”